Literature and Race in Los Angeles

by Julian Murphet

Overview

This book analyzes contemporary literature in Los Angeles in relation to the city's form, its visual character and its recent political history. Writers such as Bret Easton Ellis and James Ellroy are considered as responding to racial and ethnic partitioning in LA, as well as to increasing cultural homogeneity. Unlike other books on contemporary American literature, this book builds a composite portrait of a single literary scene in order to demonstrate the significance of writing in a tendentially post-literate culture, and the difficulties of literary representation in a city committed to visual representation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521801492
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/19/2001
Series:	Cultural Margins , #8
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The representation of Los Angeles; 2. Neo-noir and the archaeology of urban space; 3. Postcards from sin-city; 4. Cities within the city: Third world in the First; 5. Realism and beyond; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Murphet writes in the coded words and phrases of a scholar addressing his fellow scholars, but more often he is capable of showing us new and provocative ways to look at our city, ourselves and the writers who have tried to capture us in print." Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher